Engine Wars! CryEngine Shifting To Cheap Subscription

Who’d have thought game engines could be so competitive? We need Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura commenting on all this news from GDC. Following on from yesterday’s announcement that Epic will be releasing Unreal 4 on subscription for $19 per month plus a 5% share of the gross profits, Crytek has responded by announcing that their CryEngine will also be available on subscription, for the cryminally low price of $9.90 per month and no cuts from the profits. Is this the engine equivalent of Hulking up?

Now all we need is Valve to make Source 2 free, but supported by the Steam Workshop so people will actually be making money. A bit like Unity, but with no money down at all. Can they? Would they? Probably not, but it’s fun to consider. This is what CryEngine is capable of.

Did Crytek plan this for GDC? Did both companies spot the lay of the hand-sculpted land and make the same decision? Or are we looking at Crytek being super-competitive? $9.90 does seem like a deliberate choice: just a tad over half the cost of the Unreal engine.

Whatever my early-morning cynicism, can we at least all agree that a sleepless Mark Rein is being a little bit adorable on Twitter, here.

It's 3AM and my mind is just racing with excitement to get back to the show in the morning to talk to more developers about UE4! #UnrealDev